The Three E's
by Rhoswen Eolande
Summary: Luna and Ginny are born in Harry's year. Several years later, Esmeralda, Edgar, and Evangeline Potter arrive at Hogwarts with a bang. Among other things, Tom Riddle is lying in wait for them. Tom/Ginny, Harry/Hermione, Draco/Luna. No OCs.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I saw this idea floating around the Net and decided I had to try it for myself.

For those following my fem Ichigo story? Don't worry. Not abandoning it. But if I only have one idea going at once, I go a little stir crazy, so for now I'm switching between this story and fem Ichigo. I don't want to get tired of either tale, so I plan on bouncing from one to the other.

With that being said...

* * *

 **The Three E's**

Chapter One

Aberforth Dumbledore - yes, from _that_ Dumbledore family, he often grumbled - watched with suspicion as his famous elder brother ghosted into The Hog's Head Inn. It was a cold winter's night in 1979, and Albus was wearing a cloak and pointed hat ostensibly to disguise himself, though in reality rather the opposite effect was had. The pointed hat was purple and the cloak was shimmering silver.

Albus always had liked that extra effect.

Brushing off snow, he looked as usual totally out of place at The Hog's Head, a tall and forbidding sooty-bricked sort of place right on the edge of Hogsmeade, the inside composed of a small, dingy room lined with equally sooty windows and filled with candles dying slow, melting deaths on plain wooden tables.

Albus walked right up to Aberforth, openly revealing his gleaming spectacles and his long auburn beard going silver. "Nice job disguising yourself," Aberforth muttered, going back to polishing his glass behind the bar.

Albus looked pointedly at the spotted cloth. "That looks rather unsanitary."

"You know, I did arrange this meeting spot for you," said Aberforth in irritation.

"Yes, and I placed you here," Albus smiled.

"So you could -!" Aberforth began in a hiss. He looked around and whispered mutinously, "So you could _spy_ on people."

Aberforth and Albus were unalike in everything but appearance. They had the same auburn-silver hair and beard, the same glasses, the same piercing blue eyes. But Aberforth dressed himself plainly, spoke plainly, and did not carry the same shining, carefully fortified gleam that Albus possessed. His beard was short, fluffy, and wiry; his glasses were murky; his attire consisted of a coat and boots. Albus was bookish; Aberforth preferred a duel; from the beginning it was not meant to be.

"Hm," said Albus simply. "Where is she?"

Aberforth smirked and pointed. Sitting uncertainly at a table in The Hog's Head, looking around herself and clutching a bejeweled handbag lined with fake jewels, was a woman. She did not look to be much. Frizzy brown hair, pale translucent clammy skin, countless shawls and bangles, enormous thick round glasses.

"Oh, God," said Albus, and Aberforth chuckled.

"I warned you," he said simply. "Divination my arse. Sybill Trelawney wouldn't know a real prediction if it bit her in the -"

"Yes, that's quite enough Aberforth, I do indeed share your reservations," said Albus in a highly displeased voice. "What do you think would happen if I just… never showed up to the interview?" he added longingly.

"She'd tell the press," said Aberforth readily, "that Albus Dumbledore offered to interview her for the position of Hogwarts Divination instructor and then never showed up." Aberforth made a shooing motion in Madame Trelawney's direction with his hand. Albus sighed, braced himself, and walked over.

"Ms Trelawney, is it?"

The woman gave a great, gasping start and looked around. Then immediately she rallied and said in a low, spooky, enchanting voice, "Ah, Albus Dumbledore. Yes, the Fates foretold me that you would know the owner of this pub…"

"I'm sure they did," said Albus flatly, motioning with a hand toward the staircase. Lovely, she was an eavesdropper. "If we could please?"

They started toward the staircase, watched from the shadows by a yellow-skinned man with greasy black hair and a hooked nose. The man glanced around, then scuttled up the stairs after them, prowling. Aberforth watched, his eyes narrowed.

Albus and Sybill Trelawney sat down across from each other at a small table inside a tiny single room in The Hog's Head. The window was closed, snow encrusted, just dark enough not to let in much moonlight over the stiff, cold bed, which was decorated with a dull, olive green cover. A candle burned between Albus and Sybill.

"So. Ms Trelawney. Granddaughter of the famous Cassandra Trelawney. You claim you can see predictions," said Albus, beginning the professor's interview.

"Ah, yes, I am in regular contact with my grandmother," said Sybill in a ghostly, airy voice, knowing full well her grandmother had been dead for fifteen years.

"Oh, really? What does she say?"

Sybill paused. "E-excuse me?"

"Your grandmother. I do miss her dearly at times. What sorts of things does she say?" Albus rolled his shoulders, smiling cheerfully, waiting.

"W-well… well… she said you wouldn't agree with this interview, Professor Dumbledore… that you do not believe in the Fates…"

"She knows me that well, does she?"

"Yes, Professor Dumbledore…"

"I've never met your grandmother." Sybill stopped cold. "And unless you can tell me a real prediction, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave."

"I - I refuse to do predictions on order like that," said Sybill, straightening and flushing.

"Oh, you do? You did not foresee that as a Hogwarts Divination professor you might be required to show some actual Divination?"

Sybill had gone very red.

Albus sighed and stood to his feet, turning to leave. "Alright, Sybill. We'll try again another year -"

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"

Albus turned back around sharply, listening. Sybill's mouth was agape, her eyes rolling around in her skull, the whites showing. Hoarse, harsh words issued from her drooling mouth. She looked almost to be having a seizure, except for what she was saying.

Albus sat back down and listened very closely - and so, leaning forward, did Severus Snape, a spy for the Dark Lord, who was out on the landing.

Just then, Aberforth stormed in on Severus listening. "Spy in my pub, will you!" he roared, grabbing Severus by the collar.

"No - no - wait -" But Severus Snape was arrested down the stairs and thrown out of the pub into the cold, snowy night air.

"And stay out!" Aberforth shouted, slamming the door and leaving Severus lying there. After a moment, he stood, and Apparated away. The Dark Lord had to know.

But Albus was inside the pub, trying very hard to listen to the rest of Sybill Trelawney's prophecy, leaning forward to hear her. He'd gotten the first part: The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.

Simple enough. There were only two children being born in wizarding Britain who fit that bill, both boys: Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter. But what about the rest of it?

"And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… And either one must kill the other, for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

Albus sat back, thinking. What he didn't expect was for Sybill to keep talking, still in that same strange, hoarse voice. He looked up in sharp surprise.

"The Chosen One shall be aided in his quest by others… A girl born with the moon's name and a girl born with Guinevere's, neither of whom will grow up as named, shall be raised as the Chosen One's sisters, not of blood but then of blood, marked as equals as well… These three shall in turn be aided by the son of a Death Eater, a plain Muggleborn… and another incarnation of the Dark Lord himself…"

Sybill suddenly sagged, gagged, and sat upright, snorting as if she'd dozed off.

"So - so sorry - what's going on?" She looked around, caught off guard. Albus did a quick Legilimency scan over her mind, and it came back positive. Sybill Trelawney had no idea she was a real Seer, and no concept of the import of what she had just said.

"Professor Trelawney." He held out his hand and beamed. "I'd like to offer you a job."

Sybill was disbelieving, but delighted. He shook her hand, said all the right things, and insisted in a sprightly sort of way that she simply _must_ move into the castle tonight. Then when he'd hurried back down the stairs, he went directly to Aberforth.

"You'd better not have said anything important in there," said Aberforth immediately. "I found Severus Snape lurking out in the hall."

Albus nodded absently, as if he'd already guessed. Which, even Aberforth could admit, he usually had.

"Sybill Trelawney is being moved into Hogwarts tonight," Albus said quietly. "Please… _ensure_ that she gets there safely."

Aberforth looked curious, but he nodded.

* * *

Albus bent over the black Pensieve bowl that night, watching the memory of Professor Trelawney's prediction swirl around within it. He'd analyzed every line, and was fairly certain he'd ascribed significance to every detail.

The first part of the prophecy, that was simple. One of the two boys - Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom - would now be chosen by the Dark Lord Voldemort. Who had heard the first part of the prophecy from Severus Snape. Voldemort would unknowingly handpick his own worst enemy, thinking he was destroying that enemy instead of creating it. The only power that Voldemort didn't know was that of Light and Love; any fool could recognize it. So there would be an epic battle of Light and Dark, and one party had to kill the other party, as long as both parties continued to ascribe meaning to the prophecy.

But then there were the Others. The aides in the Chosen One's quest.

Harry Potter was not due to be born with sisters. At least, not biological ones. However… Albus did know of two other Light families. The Lovegoods were due to give birth to a girl named Luna, and the Weasleys were due to give birth to twins - one of which was going to be a girl named Ginevra. They were the two most unlikely families one could think of, but all the signs fit.

It had taken Albus a while to figure the next part out, but it all came to him in a moment. His role in the affairs. Ginevra and Luna could not be raised as Ginevra and Luna. They had to be raised as the Chosen One's sisters, in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled. "Not of blood but then of blood" could refer to an adoption blood ritual, the other part to a changing of names.

This was where the first two problems arose. First, that the Lovegoods and the Weasleys were not _planning_ on giving up their daughters. And second, that he had to pick the right son.

But Albus knew Tom Riddle, and he thought he could do that. Everyone would expect The Great Lord Voldemort, all capital letters, to choose the Pureblood. But The Great Lord Voldemort was a Halfblood named Tom Riddle who had once looked not unlike young Harry Potter was probably going to look.

And Albus Dumbledore was almost one hundred percent dead-set sure he was going to choose Harry. So the three children, now siblings, would be marked together.

The rest of it, he could not decipher. He had his suspicions about Horcruxes, but he could not conceive of any part of Voldemort consciously going against another part of Voldemort. And as for the Death Eater's son, the plain Muggleborn? It was hard to say. That was a lot of possibilities.

But so the prophecy said, the three children stood the best chance together. He would have to try that.

* * *

The Weasleys and the Lovegoods lived near each other, several miles outside Ottery St Catchpole, which made it convenient. Both girls were born before Harry Potter, Luna born in February as an Aquarius, Ginevra in March as a Pisces. Upon March, Albus Apparated there late one night, put a silencing bubble around himself, and approached the Weasley house first.

It was a tall red brick building, really just several stories housed on top of an old pig pen, leaning steeply to the side with several chimneys atop it. Arthur Weasley worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office; Molly Weasley was a homemaker. They and all of their children were redheads.

Albus approached the house silently and slipped inside, winding past the patchwork and the shining wood, up the narrow, shabby staircase and all the way to the very top. That was where the twins were: Ron and Ginny.

He approached the crib. Ginny awoke and started crying, but with the silencing spell that didn't matter. Albus picked her up and took her in his arms. Infant Ron rolled over without waking up. The house was silent.

Albus left silently out through the back door and ghosted across the field, past the trees, and up the hill to the Lovegood abode. It looked like a tiny black castle, almost a chess piece, set high on a hill and surrounded by a creek like a moat. The Lovegoods were eccentric; Xenophilus was the editor of the rag magazine _The Quibbler_ while Pandora was an Unspeakable for the Department of Mysteries. Both pale, blonde, and mysterious to many.

Albus once more ghosted inside the home, climbing past the stacks of things indicative of a hoarding problem, past little floating pieces of paper shaped like birds that drifted gently against his beard as they twirled around the air. Up the stairs, once more, he found Luna's room. He took her up within the silencing bubble; she opened her eyes and cooed at him, but made no other sound.

Albus smiled sadly. Then he waited until he was outside the Lovegood home, and Disapparated.

He reappeared in front of his old childhood home, the cottage in Godric's Hollow, where he was housing the Potters while they were being hunted down by the Dark Lord Voldemort. The cottage was white-faced, ivy flowers curling their way up the front. As he'd gotten the secret from the Secret-Keeper, he simply knocked and entered.

The Potters hurried over to him, looking concerned.

"Lily, James," said Albus Dumbledore; he couldn't imagine how his expression must look after he had essentially stolen a pair of children. "I need to know how much you trust me."

"Unreservedly, sir," said Lily Potter, looking concerned.

Albus gently laid the babies in her arms. "I need you to raise these two girls alongside your son," he said. "I need you to tell everyone the three were triplets, and give the girls names of your own choosing. They're both newborns."

"Oh!" Lily and James looked down, brows furrowed, into the infants' faces. Lily looked up. "But sir, why -?" She paused and looked sympathetic. Albus realized tears were blinding his vision.

"They - they couldn't stay where they were," he managed.

"Professor Dumbledore," said Lily, "would you like some tea?"

He almost gave in. But no, that was the last thing he deserved. "No," he said, waving them away. "No - name them, have the blood rituals done - people have to think they're your children! You must trust me!"

And he hurried out blindly into the growing storm, Apparating away. Lily and James stared after him in bewilderment.

* * *

The Potters blocked off all people from reaching them for several months, including, amazingly, their own Secret-Keeper. They didn't hear about the Lovegoods and the Weasleys mourning for their lost children, and they certainly didn't let anyone in on their own secrets. Above all, they trusted Albus Dumbledore.

They had their son in secret, and as promised, they named the children as they would triplets. The dark-haired little boy originally due to be named Harry would be called Edgar instead, while his redheaded sister would be Esmeralda and his blonde sister would be Evangeline.

Once all three children were born, they had the blood ritual done, whispering around a circle while injecting vials of blood into each child's arm. Esmeralda and Evangeline both became Potters, in blood and in name, irrevocably from that point forward.

As proof, the baby girls magically transfigured like they were Metamorphmagi, taking on many of Lily's physical characteristics. Some of their old traits remained, but they became a blend of the old and the new. A Weasley and a Lovegood were both unknowingly transformed into fabulously wealthy, respectable Potters.

Deciding the evidence of a few months wouldn't make that much of a difference, a few days later James threw open the door to welcome Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black into his home.

"You go off the radar for four months and I come back to find you've had triplets!" Sirius congratulated James, clapping him on the shoulders. "I do not envy you at all! Now, where are my godchildren…?"

Sirius was too excited, a doting Peter wasn't particularly bright, and Remus wasn't there, excluded under the suspicion being a werewolf held. Thus, the secret was safe.

Only Lily, James, and Albus knew the truth. Albus never even told Severus Snape.

* * *

On the night of the attack on Godric's Hollow, Lord Voldemort stepped over the dead form of Lily Potter - James Potter's dead form was out in the hall - and up to the crib with the three crying children. He stood at an angle, leveling them with his wand. He thought it was the boy, but he didn't know for certain which one it was. Best to kill them all at once.

The glowing green Killing Curse shot off and with a bang it rebounded. All three foreheads were grazed, but the resulting pushback from three protected people at once was so strong that when it hit Voldemort's mangled, tattered soul, that soul broke off into five pieces.

The main piece, Voldemort himself, flew in fear to the forests of Albania. Three other pieces floated into the heads of the three children. But the one remaining piece?

It siphoned off power from the three children and then wandered off. Memories flitting through its mind, those memories slowly draining away, it went back to the first place it could remember: Woole's Orphanage in London.

It was still there, ready and waiting for him.

The soul piece used the power granted to it by the Potters to form its own one year old infant body. Then, in a fit of magic never before seen, over the following three to four years the soul slowly grew back over time, growing to fit its infant body. The body taken from the magic of the Potters, who now had more than enough to spare.

When the orphanage workers opened the door and looked down on the doorstep the next morning, the name suddenly came to them: Tom Riddle.

* * *

Dumbledore nearly jumped the day the alert came from the piece of parchment tethered always to his desk. He looked down - and yes, he was certain of it now.

Tom Riddle's name had just appeared on the one year old children's magical registry.

No one knew. Everyone knew Voldemort had gone to Hogwarts, and some people had known of Tom Riddle, but the only person who knew for certain that the two were the same person was Horace Slughorn. Horace had retired years ago.

Now was the time to act, but the prophecy. The prophecy.

In the end, Albus Dumbledore stayed put and did nothing, wondering if he was just as bad as the elder Tom Riddle.

* * *

Meanwhile elsewhere in the world, Draco Malfoy was being raised inside a vast, cold, magnificent mansion… and Hermione Granger was being raised by two ordinary Muggle dentists…

And Lily Potter's Muggle sister, Petunia Dursley, opened her doorstep one morning, looked down, and screamed at the three scarred orphans that had been left lying, with a letter from Dumbledore, on her doorstep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Almost ten years later, the morning sunlight gleamed as it grew over the Dursley home. It filtered over the well kept front flower garden, neatly trimmed grass, hedges and garden wall and front fence, inside the dormer window, across fine white carpets, flowers in ugly but fine vases on end tables, a huge television, expensive armchairs, a gleaming polished mantel piece over a magnificent red brick fireplace that stuck out amongst all the white and beige in the rest of the living room. All in all, a spacious abode.

The Dursleys were firmly ordinary, and quite proud of that. They despised and feared strangeness of any kind. Vernon Dursley was a firm director and Petunia Dursley, the Potters' biological aunt, was a homemaker. They lived in a wealthy suburb slightly beyond the city of Surrey, England. They were not rich, but they did well for themselves, and had a nice car in the driveway and a much-beloved son sleeping in the largest bedroom upstairs. Appearance was important to the Dursleys; they were terrified of being the subject of any kind of gossip and wanted to look good, even as Petunia gossiped over tea and bridge club herself while Vernon was at work during the day.

To all outsiders, they really played off of the fact that they had taken in three unwanted orphans. It got a lot of sympathy and admiration from strangers, and they liked that. But on the inside, mysteriously, all the photos in the living room were of their son Dudley, a large blond boy. None of the photos featured the Potters. It was as if they didn't exist at all.

But there they still were, almost ten years later. They'd all been stuffed inside one tiny single upstairs bedroom, even though it would have been more appropriate to leave Edgar in that bedroom, Dudley in his own bedroom, and give the twin girls the guest bedroom. Esmeralda and Evangeline had a bunk bed to themselves, Esmeralda the top and Evangeline the bottom, while Edgar had a bunk hanging above a desk set into the wall. Evangeline and Esmeralda's desks were crammed at the foot of their beds, one right next to the other, near the only window. One wardrobe was right next to one of the girls desks, while the other two wardrobes were at the heads of the beds, so that the bedroom door could only halfway open.

They were asleep at the moment, but all of a sudden they were jerked awake by a rapping on their bedroom door and a shrill shriek from the outside where their Aunt Petunia was standing. "Wake up!" she shouted sharply. "It's time to do your chores!" With one last banging knock, she retreated, heels clacking away.

The Potters sighed, yanked unceremoniously from their sleep, rolling over in their beds and just laying there blinking sleepily. "I had the dream again," said Edgar into the silence. "The one about riding the flying motorcycle through the night sky." His tone was soft, but longing.

"I had the other one," said Esmeralda flatly. "About the flash of green light and the burning pain on my forehead."

"Why is it that we all have the same dreams, do you think?" Evangeline asked with distant, clinical curiosity, her face its usual blank. "I mean, it's not like -" She looked around reflexively; in the Dursley house these were dangerous words. Finally she murmured defiantly, "It's not like we could ever have ridden a flying motorcycle as babies. Flying motorcycles are an impossibility, as awful and Dursleyish as that sounds."

"The pain in our foreheads could be a memory of the car crash," Edgar offered, propping himself up on one elbow. "The one Aunt Petunia says our parents died in when we were babies, the one that got us our scars." He pointed to the lightning bolt scar visible on each forehead. (Evangeline and Esmeralda hid the disfiguring marks with bangs while Edgar, who thought the scars were cool, kept his open.) "Though I can't imagine where all the green light came from." He frowned, troubled.

"That's easy," said Esmeralda. "We could have been driving through a stoplight. Shh!" She looked around as the clacking heels came back to their closed bedroom door. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't like to hear the Potters talking about dreams, cartoons, imagination, or impossibilities - even to the point of forbidding the Potters from asking questions.

"Are you three up yet?" Aunt Petunia snapped through the closed bedroom door.

"Yes!" Esmeralda snapped back, lying, irritable and exasperated. Her siblings bit back amused smiles.

"Oh. Well." Aunt Petunia sniffed. "Get a move on. The lawn needs mowing, the house needs cleaning, and that breakfast won't make itself. It's Duddy's birthday today and you'd better make it good. Make yourselves useful." She left.

"One of these days I'm just going to hit her over the head with one of her precious vases full of flowers," Esmeralda said mutinously as they all slid to their feet, climbing down the bunk steps to the bedroom floor. "I'm just going to grab a vase up in my hand and bang. Right over the head."

"You would go to prison," Evangeline pointed out calmly, mostly amused.

"It'd be worth it," Esmeralda muttered.

Edgar, naturally quiet and used to Esmeralda's temper, simply continued with getting dressed, a faint smile on his face. "Thanks for reminding us about Dudley's birthday, Evangeline," he said dryly. "I needed to mentally prepare myself for the day ahead."

"No problem," said Evangeline simply from in front of her own wardrobe. The Potters had seen each other naked many times, and were not shy about undressing in front of others. In a tiny single bedroom with multiple people, one could not afford to be.

Edgar was always dressed in Dudley's old clothes. They were all he was offered. All the clothes were faded, grey, ragged, and beaten, along with very baggy because Dudley was about four times bigger than Edgar.

Edgar was a small, slim boy, with messy black hair and round, wire-rimmed spectacles taped over with Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him in the nose.

Dudley loved beating up his much smaller cousins. Esmeralda often fought back, with the result that she got a worse beating than the rest of them, vicious and bloody lipped, kicking and being thrown around in the dirt. Evangeline curled into a silent little ball and tried to minimize damage, her dignity telling her to remain as quiet as she could, as if that would help. Edgar, passive, just stood there being beaten, his arms pinned behind his back, with a dull, distant look on his face. He was much faster than his sisters, but he refused to run ahead of them and leave them behind, with the result that they were always caught eventually by Dudley and his gang and always beaten.

Esmeralda was unique in that, despite how much she hated beatings, she would often place herself between her cousin and younger kids, with the result that she was beaten more often than the other two.

On the surface, the Potters looked nothing alike, but there were similarities. They were all of the same size and relative body type, small and slim. And they all had the same delicate facial features and almond shaped eyes.

But Esmeralda and Evangeline looked nothing like their brother in every other respect. They both had the same high cheekbones and heart-shaped face, with the result that they looked more like eachother than they did like Edgar. Dudley often made fun of Edgar for looking "girly" and "nerdy" but he could never comment on his sisters' appearance because there was no denying it - they were pretty.

Esmeralda had long reddish-gold hair, striking dark eyes, and countless freckles. Evangeline had long pale blonde hair, grey eyes, and very white skin. Their aunt tried to dress them in girly clothes that were nevertheless as hideous and humiliating as possible, though if the clothes were too hideous they would mysteriously shrink and if their hair was cut it would grow back overnight. Odd things like this had always happened around all three of the Potters - being found suddenly in impossible places while escaping Dudley's gang without knowing how they had gotten there, getting angry at students and teacher and having strange things suddenly happen to them, and other absurdities.

The Dursleys always blamed the Potters, refusing to comprehend that the Potters had done nothing themselves to cause these events. The response was always the same - the Potters were all crammed shrieking and screaming at the same time for several days into the cupboard under the stairs, with the cleaning supplies and the spiders, "as punishment." This did not stop the strange incidents from occurring in the least, though it did leave Esmeralda with a permanent hatred and fear of darkness, and Edgar and Evangeline with a nervousness in small enclosed spaces. This was mostly, in the Potters' opinion, because what they were saying was true - they were not causing the events in the first place.

Esmeralda called this "rampant stupidity." Evangeline called it "incredible, stubborn narrow-mindedness." Edgar was the one to combine the two: "Dursley behavior."

Edgar must have taken after the other side of their family, for his appearance was nothing like that of his siblings. His skin was olive, he had a sharp diamond face shape, and his eyes were a bright, piercing green.

The Potters got dressed, brushed their hair and teeth, and went downstairs into the kitchen. A huge mound of extremely large birthday presents almost entirely obscured the table. "Alright," said Evangeline, all business, "let's get to work." Deadpan, emotionless, and matter of fact, she was usually the one to assign the siblings their chores.

The Potters separated into their usual duties, no allowance added: Evangeline and Esmeralda alternated cooking and cleaning, while Edgar did the outside jobs such as watering and mowing the grass or cleaning the car.

Today Evangeline did the cleaning, humming to herself and imagining cute little soot sprites poofing upward in the wake of her cleaning. Outwardly calm and collected at all times, with big staring eyes and zero expressiveness, rarely smiling, Evangeline rebelled against her circumstances in quiet ways - little bits of creativity, private imaginings, the things no one could take from her that were safe, her own. Her inner world was filled with wonders, even as her outer world was drab and realistic. Her aunt and uncle may have been able to stop her from doing or saying, but no one could stop her from thinking, from imagining more. Her imaginings were her closest friends - inwardly more uncertain and lonely than she let on to anyone else, Evangeline chose to value her own thoughts in a world that dismissed them.

Esmeralda, more overt and rebellious, glanced around and then spat into Dudley's birthday breakfast before finishing making it. She, too, wanted more, but Esmeralda was more willing to fight openly for it. It was she, more than the other two, who their aunt and uncle were always yelling at. Today was an especially bitter day for her, because the Potters' birthday, July 31st, was never celebrated by the Dursleys - and since Dudley's gang and their bullying kept the Potters from making any friends at school, that meant their birthday was never celebrated period.

Edgar made no sign of rebellion, but spent the entire morning mowing the lawn picturing longingly being somewhere - anywhere - else. Edgar took it all much more passively than the other two, wanting more than anything just to get by and screw up as little as possible. His sisters worried about him. They did not think his reaction was healthy.

The Potters were back together in the kitchen by the time Uncle Vernon came out for the morning. "Comb your hair and wash up better!" he barked at Edgar, chronically hating disorderliness of any kind. "And you two!" He glared at the girls. "Where's breakfast? Move faster! And you could do with looking a little nicer!" he snapped at Esmeralda, who was glaring at him.

Evangeline and Edgar stopped Esmeralda from moving forward. "Yes, Uncle Vernon," said Evangeline carefully. The last thing they needed right now was another cupboard punishment.

Uncle Vernon was a massive man, who might once have been athletic but had since gained quite a bit of girth in the middle area. He had balding hair and a thick black mustache, a ruddy face that spoke of heart problems and high blood pressure, and he wore button up shirts and boring ties even on weekends. He looked almost nothing like his wife, their Aunt Petunia, a slim blonde woman with a chiffon of gleaming hair in a neat housedress who nevertheless had the misfortune of having been born bony and long-and-thin-faced with crooked, protruding teeth that had never been fixed in childhood.

Aunt Petunia came out into the kitchen with Dudley, very late - it took Dudley forever to get up in the mornings. Dudley was a huge, pink-faced boy with smooth blond hair; he had tiny, watery, dry blue eyes and his mother still dressed him at eleven years old. The only kind of physical exercise he enjoyed was beating the crap out of people, which he was never punished for; most of the rest of his time was spent on passively, mind numbingly snacking while consuming television and computer games. He was a true child of the new digital age.

The Potters moved presents aside carefully, putting plates of breakfast on the table. They were ignored, and equally ignored when they sat down beside each other at the large, round kitchen table and began eating in silence. Dudley was counting his presents, and his parents were watching him with eager expressions on tenterhooks suspense, wanting nothing more than to make him happy.

Dudley looked up. "Thirty six," he said in a whiny, pouty voice. "That's two less than last year."

Esmeralda rolled her eyes and returned to her food, disgusted and uncaring. Evangeline sighed and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable Dudley Dursley Temper Tantrum. Edgar pulled his plate preemptively into his lap in case Dudley turned the table over - again.

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present. See, it's here, under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

Sure enough, Dudley began to flush dark red. "Alright, thirty-seven then," he snapped. Dudley was self conscious about his lack of academic talent. His cousins always beat him in grades - Esmeralda and Evangeline because they were determined to leave their aunt and uncle's house and make their own way in the world. Edgar, passive and disinterested, hadn't thought that far ahead, but even his marks were far better than Dudley's. Beating Dudley in grades wasn't hard.

The horrible thing was that Dudley had started out school trying. He just hadn't gotten anywhere, and his parents had blamed the teachers instead of searching for help for him, and so after a while he had just drifted off.

Aunt Petunia, instead of putting her foot down against Dudley's temper tantrums, chose to try to wave them off, indulging him because she wanted him to like her, wanted to be his friend. "And we'll buy you another _two_ presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? _Two_ more presents. Is that alright?"

She kept emphasizing the number two, as if trying to telepathically beam the mathematical answer into Dudley's mind by sheer force of will. It did nothing, of course; it never did. Dudley's face screwed up and he was silent for a long time. Finally the eleven year old said slowly, "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"

"Thirty-nine, sweetums." Aunt Petunia looked disappointed, but nothing could ruin Dudley in her eyes. As she often did when he asked for help with his homework, she simply gave him the answer in a sweet, sickly tone.

"Oh." Dudley sat down and grabbed a present. "Alright then." He never thanked anyone for the things he was given - rather, in a toddler's way, he simply felt entitled to them.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia encouraged this. Uncle Vernon chuckled proudly and congratulated his son on "wanting his money's worth, just like his father." He even ruffled Dudley's hair. Evangeline and Esmeralda saw Edgar look down, stormy with resentment. He would have felt physically ill with disgust at being accused of wanting Uncle Vernon's affection in the same way Dudley had it, but all his interactions with Dudley and Uncle Vernon were tinged with a hint of bitterness.

The girls felt privately they were always doomed to be. Edgar was small and fast where Uncle Vernon prized size and strength; Edgar was messy and disorganized where Uncle Vernon was almost obsessively neat; and Edgar, despite how hard he tried to "just get by," was hopelessly dark and unconventional where Uncle Vernon prized the drab and the ordinary. Dudley instinctively understood this, and seemed to draw power from it.

Evangeline and Esmeralda had much more mixed feelings about Aunt Petunia. She'd tried early on in their lives to control them and make them into her own personal dolls. When they hadn't fit this mold, it had led to in fighting. The girls interacted with their aunt with a mixture of resentment and discomfort, feeling that they disappointed their Aunt Petunia but at the same time somehow she envied them. Dudley, meanwhile, took an almost chauvinistic, chivalric tone with his female cousins - he was allowed to beat them up, but he was even more vicious toward anyone else who tried to bully them. They were, in a strange way, _his_ property, one of the countless things he owned that he was careless with.

The telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while everyone else watched Dudley unwrap presents. The Potters became more uncomfortable with each successive box, knowing that the more was spent on Dudley, the less would be spent on them. Finally, Aunt Petunia came back into the kitchen with a stormy, anxious expression.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take them." She jerked her head in the Potters' direction.

Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to a theme park or a drive in movie theater, for example. And every year, the Potters were left behind with Mrs Figg, a little old cat lady who lived two streets away and whose house smelled of medicine and rotting food and was covered in knitted afghans.

Edgar was convinced Mrs Figg was "mad," but she struck the girls more as a sour old lady. She made the girls run around propping up her feet and doing chores for her, while she had Edgar sit beside her and listen as she droned on for hours over all her old cat photos. (She had documented photographic evidence of every cat she had ever owned, including a picture of each one dead on an observation table. Edgar considered this evidence of her madness, while Evangeline thought it said fascinating things about her psychologically. Esmeralda pointed out that both of those things were true, "but mostly for practical purposes it's just creepy.")

So while the news of not having to go to Mrs Figg's struck them with hope, they were hesitant about what would take Mrs Figg's place. The Dursleys didn't like to see the Potters too happy anymore than they liked to see the Potters too imaginative - they seemed to fear it might bring about terrible things.

"Now what?" Aunt Petunia was glaring at the Potters. Edgar bowed his head, both hesitant and ashamed of being too happy over Mrs Figg's broken leg. Esmeralda was more… overt.

"We didn't make Mrs Figg's leg break from two block away, you know," she snapped.

"Silence, _you_!" Aunt Petunia growled. "You should be grateful for having a place anywhere!"

"Oh yes, only relative I have, thank you for being kind enough to feed and house me for ten years," said Esmeralda sarcastically, shooting to her feet.

"Girl! You are sitting on a very high horse and it's a very hard fall!" Uncle Vernon barked, shooting to his feet, careful, as always, to point out the dangers of being less than perfectly feminine. Uncle Vernon treated the girls with condescension; he never did seem to expect much from them, which was part of the reason why they expected only the best from themselves.

Esmeralda opened her mouth to shoot out a response, but Evangeline stood and held her back. Esmeralda looked around - then shut her mouth and sat down abruptly, reserved, calming herself for her siblings' sake. Evangeline nodded once, and sat down beside her.

"And _you_ ," Aunt Petunia spat at Evangeline, "don't think you're any better, always pretending to be the angel. I see what you really are."

Evangeline's face twisted into a look of deep and dignified disgust. "Think whatever you want," was all she said. The implication being that whatever they thought would change nothing. Evangeline was not the goody two shoes in the traditional sense - she found it sensible to get along as much as possible, but she could have watched her aunt and uncle's house burn to the ground with all their belongings inside it and not particularly cared. It wouldn't have changed anything for her.

Aunt Petunia at last turned away and faced her husband again, her expression still oddly resentful. "What are we going to do?" she snapped.

"We could phone Marge."

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates those three children," said Aunt Petunia carelessly, as though the children in question weren't right beside her.

The Dursleys often spoke about the Potters like this, over their heads, as though they weren't present. Esmeralda in particular despised being ignored, wanting secretly to be thought of as something extraordinary. Evangeline didn't like the sense of alienation, the feeling of being too strange to directly speak to. Edgar felt deeply the disgust inherent in the action of ignoring, the fear and disgust. "It's like we're slugs," he complained once.

"What about what's her name, your friend -Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca."

"You could just leave us here," said Edgar with foolish hope and optimism. The Potters were happiest when alone at home without the Dursleys. They made themselves the food they wanted to eat for once, while the girls watched what they wanted on television for a change and Edgar played Dudley's computer games.

Aunt Petunia's lips pursed in irritation. "And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snapped. There it was again, the fear of the Potters, the blame put on them for the strange and unexpected things that always seemed to happen around them.

"We won't blow up the house!" Edgar protested, but they had stopped listening. Esmeralda kicked Edgar under the table to silence him, Evangeline patting his arm briefly in a comforting sort of way. Edgar looked down, resentful.

"I suppose we could take them to the zoo with us… and leave them in the car…"

The Potters thought about pointing out that not even dogs were supposed to be left in cars with the windows up, but felt there would be no point.

"That car's new!" Uncle Vernon protested. "They're not sitting in it alone. It's bad enough I have to buy a bloody SUV to cart them around as it is."

Uncle Vernon often complained loudly to the Potters about how much they cost to keep around.

Dudley began to cry loudly - well, he began fake crying, at any rate. He used fake crying to get things from his Mummy, who immediately threw her arms around him and wailed shrilly that she wouldn't let "those nasty children ruin his special day!"

"The girls can come, but they have to stay near me. And I don't want Edgar to come. He always spoils everything," Dudley fake sobbed into Aunt Petunia's shoulder. Then he shot the Potters a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms. They weren't sure which was worse - Edgar being excluded from the zoo, or Evangeline and Esmeralda being kept near their cousin at the zoo so he could punch and pick on them.

Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia, straightening in the instinctive panic of one who does not want her peers to know that her son still cries into his Mummy's shoulder and throws temper tantrums - and a moment later Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.

Piers was an odd boy for Dudley to have as a best friend. He was the only tiny one in Dudley's gang, small and scrawny. He should have been a bully victim instead of a bully, but Piers had a talent for getting behind the toughest person on the play yard. He had been attracted to the protection of Dudley's strength almost as much as Dudley had been attracted to Piers's knack for doing absolutely whatever he was ordered to. Piers was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them.

Dudley immediately stopped pretending to cry. Boys didn't cry, according to his father, and Dudley didn't want to embarrass himself.

The Dursleys couldn't think of anything else to do with them, so in the end the Potters were allowed to go the zoo for the day. Uncle Vernon took them aside briefly into the other room, stuck his face right up close to theirs, and hissed, "Any of you do any of your funny business, anything to embarrass me, and I'll lock all three of you in that cupboard until Christmas! You'll be stuck in there without food for a solid week! Understand?"

To understand what kind of a threat this was - though it was probably an empty one - it must be noted that Dudley's birthday was in the early part of summertime.

Esmeralda scowled, refusing to seem upset or intimidated. Evangeline just stared at her uncle evenly in that dignified, unsettling, deadpan way she had. "We're not going to do anything," said Edgar quietly, though he knew it was probably fruitless.

Uncle Vernon stalked away.

They all got into the gigantic SUV. Dudley and Piers took the two front seats while the Potters got the three rear ones. And they began the drive to the zoo. Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia as he drove - one of his favorite things was announcing his narrow minded opinions to the world in the form of a complaint. His chief subjects of complaint: the Potters, the city council, the bank, and people at work.

Today, however, he was complaining about motorcycles, and before his sisters could stop him, they watched in horror as Edgar said with quiet, pleasant eccentricity, "Oh! I had a dream about a motorcycle. It was flying."

Uncle Vernon stopped fast and hard, whirled right around in his seat, and yelled at the Potters so loud his face turned purple, "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" Fury and panic had filled his voice.

Edgar lowered his head, as Esmeralda winced and stayed where she was through the spittle that had been blown into her face and Evangeline closed her eyes in - distaste? defeat? a desire to block out all surroundings? It was a mystery even to herself.

"I know they don't," Edgar muttered, ashamed. "It was only a dream." Dudley and Piers were snickering, as they often did when Edgar said something strange at school. Evangeline felt a shot of pity for their brother, Esmeralda a moment of anger on his behalf - Edgar didn't voice himself much on the best of days, and each yell just dug him further into his hole of silence.

It was a sunny summer Saturday, and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys and the Potters collectively waded through the masses, the Potters holding hands defiantly even as Dudley and Piers made fun of them. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams from the van at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady had looked over their hideous outfits with pity and asked them kindly what they wanted, the Dursleys bought the Potters some very cheap popsicles. Edgar got lemon, Evangeline got strawberry vanilla cream, and Esmeralda got chocolate fudge.

It was the first dessert they'd eaten in about two months.

The Potters got to walk apart from the Dursleys on the trail through the zoo. They read the placards, watched the animals on display, rode the tram across the great park looking at the larger exhibits. They had a very good time. They had lunch in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his Knickerbocker Glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one to avoid the glaring eyes and the Potters were allowed to share and finish Dudley's first, uneaten ice cream.

It was the best morning they'd had in over a year, by far. And they felt, afterward, that they should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. Aunt Petunia tried to get the girls to stay outside with her. "Girls don't like big snakes," she mandated prissily.

"I _love_ big snakes," said Esmeralda, impassioned. "Maybe I'll get lucky and one will break out and _eat_ someone." Her eyes gleamed. Aunt Petunia glared at her.

"I see no reason to be frightened of something contained inside a glass tank," Evangeline observed clinically. The Dursleys were physically incapable of refuting such commonsense logic, just as Evangeline had planned, so she and her sister followed the men into the reptile house.

It was a round hallway, winding completely around in a circle, cold and dark to keep the snakes active with the tiny tanks the snakes were contained within brightly lit so that they could be better seen. All the adults and children ambled slowly around the hallway, gawking at the snakes and lizards doing positively ordinary things like slithering over bits of wood and stone placed inside the tank to make the snakes and lizards move, to make them more interesting.

"I want to see huge, poisonous, man-crushing snakes!" Dudley was shouting, running around the reptile house. "I want to see cobras and pythons and things that can kill people - WHOA! Check out this one!"

Everyone walked curiously over to the tank Dudley had his nose pressed against. The boa constrictor inside was indeed huge, brown and coiled, but fast asleep. It did not move, its head facing away from the tank surface.

"Which do you think would win, Uncle Vernon's assault vehicle or the snake?" Edgar muttered dryly.

"The snake," the girls agreed as one.

They watched as Dudley whined that it wasn't moving, and as Uncle Vernon banged stupidly on the glass, and as Dudley whined some more, and then as Dudley shuffled away with his father following him. In particular, the girls' eyes were on Edgar. A curious change had come over him, as he stared at the snake, different, dangerous, gawked at, trapped, and passive to the point of comatose. Depressed.

The snake, they felt, was rather like Edgar. Evangeline and Esmeralda had never gotten used to their prison. Edgar, like this boa constrictor, had assumed the fetal position and gone to sleep inside it.

Edgar slowly moved forward, eyes on the snake, almost zombie like. His sisters followed him, watching him sympathetically.

So they almost missed it when the snake suddenly jerked up and around, raising its head until its eyes were at the Potters' level. It opened its mouth, and out came words, in a low, hissing male voice. "Ah, Speakers…" it whispered.

The girls stared, looking up and around. But no one else seemed to have noticed the snake speaking. It was almost like only they could hear it.

But Edgar was entranced. His eyes trained on the snake, he didn't seem surprised in the slightest. "Sorry about my relatives," he said.

"Don't worry, I get it all the time," the snake sighed.

"I know," said Edgar. "It must be really annoying."

"You have no idea."

"Do you… always talk to people?" said Evangeline uncertainly.

"Yes, Vange, that's the real appeal of the zoo, the talking snake inside that somehow we've never heard of," said Esmeralda, sarcastic when she was nervous or afraid.

"Oh, buzz off, Esme, I just thought it was worth an ask," Evangeline sighed.

The snake hissed with laughter. "No," he said. "You're the first three Speakers I've ever met."

"Where do you come from anyway?" Edgar asked with polite curiosity. He still seemed to find all this weirdly normal.

"My kin is from Brazil, but I've never been there. I was born and bred here for human amusement. I'd like to visit, someday," the snake added longingly.

Suddenly, Piers's voice shouted from right behind the Potters, making them jump. They'd been so distracted, they hadn't noticed Dudley's best friend sneaking up behind them. "DUDLEY, MR DURSLEY, COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley ran toward the Potters and punched Edgar out of the way, making him fall to the floor caught by surprise. "Out of the way, you." Dudley quickly filled Edgar's spot, he and Piers pressing their faces up against the glass once more eagerly. The snake hissed at them, incoherent and angry, raised. Esmeralda and Evangeline felt a shot of white-hot anger, Edgar's own anger mingled with pain.

Then it all happened in a moment. The glass front to the boa constrictor's tank vanished, Piers and Dudley were thrown headfirst by an invisible force into the tank, and the glass front of the tank closed up again, trapping them inside with the snake.

The Potters' eyes widened, as their Uncle Vernon's tiny, mean dark eyes trained on them. It was, it could only be, their fault.

The boa constrictor began snapping playfully at the boys' ankles. Piers screamed. Dudley wet himself. People all over the reptile house began gasping and screaming, watching in fascinated horror. The keeper of the reptile house sprinted forward in shock to get the boys out.

* * *

The Potters were confined to their cupboard that night, sitting in the darkness in dull, defeated silence. They were forbidden from eating for several days, and would have to crawl out of their cupboard secretly at night to get food. It wasn't the first time they'd gone hungry, and likely wouldn't be the last.

They'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as they could remember, ever since they'd been babies and their parents had died in that stoplight crash. They couldn't remember being in the car when their parents had died, could not in fact remember their parents at all, though God knew they had tried countless times, coming up with imaginary scenarios and people together. They were forbidden from asking questions. There were no photographs of their parents in the house.

When they had been younger, the Potters had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take them away, but it had never happened. They finally had to accept the bitter truth: the Dursleys were their only family. The only comfort they had was the presence of each other. It was why they were so close; they hardly ever fought. The strangely dressed people who sometimes came up to bow to them or shake their hands in the street aside - the people Aunt Petunia insisted were "sick, homeless wretches" - they had no one. They could go to live with the homeless, that was about it.

No one at school, no one outside school. If they were ever turned out of the house by the Dursleys, they were alone in the world, quite alone in the world indeed. They had wandered the streets of Surrey endless times, taking buses and walking roads, but they could never escape - they always had to go back home.

And so they sat in the silence, defeated and dark, for those next several days inside their cupboard. They dreamed.


End file.
